Convertible Oak Child Sled - Simple Design / Basic Tools

I was looking for a Christmas present for my 16 month old god daughter. Initially I thought of buying a vintage sled or toboggan and refinishing it to look brand new but the ones available were “décor” pieces that had seen better days and were priced above my limit. I then looked at the new sleds available and again super expensive and nothing that would turn heads. I decided homemade would be the way to go so I looked online for plans and again came up short all were either too fancy or too simple. So I figured I would go with the “Seat of my pants” approach and wing it!

A Saturday afternoon trip to the local big box store and a wide variety of oak planks in my cart along with some brass hardware and a natural fiber rope and I felt I was ready. Now two things you need to know this was Saturday Dec 17th 7 days before Christmas eve when the presents will be opened… and I live in a high-rise condo in Toronto with no workshop! I own 4 power tools: a miter saw, cordless drill, rotary sander & a jig saw. As you will see in the pictures I did most of the work in my living room but had the miter saw setup in the bathroom (since it was the easiest room to clean up the sawdust and had an exhaust fan!). While this was not optimal and I would usually borrow a friends garage for this type of work time was tight and the weather lousy so I did what I needed to do… And for anyone wondering yes I am single so no one to yell at me about the mess…

Since I had no plan to start with and the end product has now been given away I do not have exact measurements but I have created a semi-scale drawing and provided pictures which should give you a better start then I had. Feel free to ask any questions if there is anything that confuses you...

Step 1 Tools, Materials & Plans

Plan Drawings:
Also Attached below as a PDF file.

Tools:
Miter Saw
Cordless Drill
Rotary Sander
Countersink Bit
Bungee Cords
Variety of Clamps

Materials:
2 pieces - ½” x 36” Round Wood Dowel
2 pieces - 1” x 1/8” x 36” Aluminum Flat Stock (Runner Skids)
2 pieces - 2 ½” x ¼” x 48” Oak (Skis)
3 pieces - 4” x ¼” x 48” Oak (Deck)
5 pieces - 1 ½” x ½” x 48” Oak (Braces)
2 pieces - 4” x ¾” x 36” Oak (Risers)
1 piece - 1” x 1” x 36” Oak (Seat Back Support)
1 piece - 5 ½” x ½” x 36” Oak (Seat Side Support)
1 piece - 4” x ½” x 36” Oak (Angle Seat Side Support)

6 - Brass “L” brackets
¾” Brass Screws
1” Brass Screws
Brass Finishing Washers
8 - Wing Nuts
6 - Stainless Washers
8ft - Natural Braided Rope
Wood Glue
Varnish
Trim Paint

Comments

[MaryT8M]

CONGRATULATION! This was a REAL winner. I love the look on your God Daughters face.....priceless!

[vanweb]

Thank you! She is Priceless that is what motivates me...

[depotdevoid]

Congrats on the win, you earned!

[vanweb]

Thank you Instructables & Judges and most of all the Voters for selecting my very first Instructable to be the Grand Prize winner in the Holiday Gift Contest! It is an honor!

New Instructables will be coming soon!

[stormy0314]

I attached the runners with carriage bolts, rounded heads towards the snow.

[stormy0314]

I built one of these from my own similar design when my granddaughter was 1. She is 9 now and we used it in the snow last winter.

Those metal runner guards are a necessity even when not used in the city. We lived in the country and I mostly pulled her around the farm, but she wanted to ride the sled so much that the snow, in the very cold, "icey" snow ate the red oak runners. Icey snow acts like a million very sharp minute pieces of glass. I used strips of stainless and they have held up really well.

This is a really beautiful piece of work and your god daughter and her parents will thank you for years to come when it is time to go sledding.

By the way, last winter when we were sledding I used the sled and my 208, old, pounds felt great sliding down those hills. Thanks for the instructables.

[paganwonder]

Love your design method! Nice to know the interweb doesn't contain ALL human knowledge, and now it contains a little more. Nicely done, very professional. Craftsmanship lives!

[Carleyy]

Well done! I love this sled!

[lafnbear]

Excellent design and build; she's a lucky little girl! We just found out we'll be grandparents for the first time this July; I'm favoriting this so I can come back to it & build it this summer.

Just a safety suggestion: I'd replace the bolts & wingnuts holding the aluminum runners with shorter bolts, and nylon insert locking cap nuts. Granted, they'd be tougher to remove to change the runners, but the exposed bolts & wing nuts might be kinda painful to fall onto!

[vanweb]

Thanks for the kind words...

The metal runners were a bit of an after thought so I did not put a lot of thinking into it at the time.. but ones on the front do have short bolts and are under the support ropes and for the ones on the back I did not have the right length of bolt but I situated them under the overhang of the seat so I am not too worried that she can fall om them. I will see how the runners hold up over the season and will take your suggestion and replace the bolts when I do my end of season cleanup on the sled.

Also that would be a good time for me to do phase two...

When I was building the seat it reminded me of a small cottage deck chair.. I am thinking I may build a little seat bottom so that they can reuse it in the summer as an outdoor lounge chair for the little lady! Basically convert it to an Adirondack chair (or here in Ontario Canada as we call it - a Muskoka chair)